Paper Republic – Chinese Literature in Translation

Fan Wen

范稳

Fan Wen (范稳) is a Kunming-based Catholic author of several novels based on the history of the 19th- and 20th-century interaction of foreigners, Han and several indigenous ethnic groups in the areas bordering on Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet. They include: a trilogy, Harmonious Land (水乳大地), Pitiful Land (悲悯大地), and Canticle to the Land (大地雅歌); and more recently, Bisezhai Station (碧色寨), about the Frenchmen and the Chinese who built the railway (1904-10) linking Kunming and Haiphong, which reportedly resulted in the deaths of many thousands of railway workers.

Harmonious Land tells the tale of a multi-ethnic settlement in Lancangjiang Canyon — gateway to Tibet — beset by battles between arrogant French Catholic missionaries, incompetent Han officials and their marauding troops, Naxi Dongba Shamanists, and the dominant Tibetans, not all of whom lead pacific, vegetarian lives in the local lamasery.